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THE BRUSH CREEK BULLETIN Volume 7, Issue 2 March/April 2005   BLOCH GALLERY DESIGNER 'DECODES' PRINCIPLES BEHIND NELSON-ATKINS EXPANSION Architecture is an art whose success or failure is defined by the experience of a building’s occupants, not by perceptions as a building is being constructed, says Steven Holl, designer of the Henry W. and Marion H. Bloch Gallery of Art, under construction at the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art. “This building is driven by idea, and the most important way to understand that idea is to experience it, walk through it, feel it and sense it,” Holl told a near-capacity crowd at Unity Temple on the Plaza on March 17. Holl noted that the design was inspired in part by a 16th-Century Chinese painting in the Nelson-Atkins permanent collection, The North Sea by Zhou Chen, as well as Victor Hugo’s quote inscribed atop the exterior of the current museum "The soul has greater need of the ideal than of the real." He urged patience and the withholding of judgment on the building until its opening, currently scheduled for 2007. The most dramatic impact of the Bloch building will be internal and its central role as a place for the display of art, Holl said. Describing the exterior that members of the public attending the panel discussion questioned, Holl said, “The materials are means to infuse the gallery with perfect museum light. The materiality of the building is very important. All galleries will respect both artists and light. It will be like the sun shining through alabaster. It is structural, but it allows light control.” Said Marc Wilson, the museum’s director and chief executive officer, “The most advanced thinking about how to design an art space is being done in Kansas City. Not in New York. Not in Los Angeles. But right here.” Referring to the experience of the building, Holl said, “This building will be about movement, moving through its great internal spaces, which will draw you outside, and vice versa, giving glimpses to external spaces. Space is very important. And at certain moments you reveal the structure.” The galleries will be one continuous flow, which was important to the curators who will be responsible for displaying art. Holl said there is a 30-foot vertical drop from north to south, but the effect is so gradual that a person in a wheelchair will be able to navigate it without stress. Holl said that the sunlight striking the glass will change at different times of day and different times of the year, creating new and different experiences. The austere glass exterior will be “a membrane of clear and the translucent glass” and invite views in and out, opening up at certain places and creating new views and experiences whether on the inside or the outside. Asked about the “proportionality” of the structure in relation to the current, 1933 museum and the surrounding neighborhood, Holl stressed that the total impact of the Bloch Gallery relied heavily on the yet-to-come landscape. “The concept is that the building will be like shards of glass thrown on the landscape, or like blocks of ice floating on the landscape,” Holl said. “The shards of glass will create new views, and a new sense of space between the five distinct glass structures.” While the current view of the construction site is one of steel infrastructure on concrete walls, “we’re inserting a whole landscape below the shards.” Holl said the 165,000-square-foot addition provides 60 percent more gallery space, mostly public space, with no administrative space in the Bloch Gallery. PUBLIC ANTICIPATES PLAZA LIBRARY OPENING Weekend Events Celebrate Community The new Plaza Branch Library at 4801 Main Street will open its doors April 16 and 17 with a series of special events and activities. On Saturday April 16, the library will host an Open House in a facility labeled “A Community Branch for the Entire Community,” from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. There will be stories, music and crafts for children, teen activities, and workshops for adults. Sunday, April 17, is the Grand Opening. Readers, neighbors, customers and the curious are invited to celebrate with the Library Board of Trustees, staff, elected officials and special guest, Robert Putnam, sociologist and author. Doors open at 1 p.m. with a musical performance by Kansas City jazz legends, The Scamps, and the Kansas City Children's Chorus. Opening remarks and the ribbon cutting begin at 3 p.m. Visitors to the Plaza Branch Library at 4801 Main Street will have a spectacular view of Brush Creek and the Plaza upon the facility's opening in mid-April. Sunday’s celebration continues with a 5:30 p.m. Bradbury Lecture Series presentation by Dr. Putnam, author of Bowling Alone: the Collapse and Revival of American Community and Better Together: Restoring the American Community. This event at Unity Temple on the Plaza, 707 W. 47th St., is free and open to the public but advance tickets are required and available by calling 816-235-6222. Moving Into the Plaza Colonnade The new Plaza Branch Library ultimately replaces a very popular library branch that served the community at that site for many years. In the mid-1990’s it was discovered the cost of repairing the Plaza Library would be almost as expensive as replacing it. It was then the Kansas City Library Board of Trustees struck a deal with private developers that combined the development of a nine-story office project above a new two-story, 50,000 square foot library and children’s center at the base of the Plaza Colonnade. The former Plaza Library was torn down in 2003 with groundbreaking for the $70 million development occurring that December. A smaller, temporary Plaza Library operated at 51st and Brookside until this March when staff moved into the new Plaza Branch Library with the help of library moving specialists National Library Relocations, Inc. of Long Island, New York. This move entailed twelve movers transporting and re-shelving over 102,000 hard cover books in five days. Joel Jones is the director of the Plaza Branch Library. He has been with the library system for ten years, having served as the Director of the Southeast and Waldo branches prior to this appointment. Commercial tenants started moving into the Plaza Colonnade late last year. PARTNER UPDATES Kelvin Simmons, former director of the Missouri Department of Economic Development has joined Swope Health Services as vice president of Planning and Development. Simmons is a former Kansas City City Council member who was elected twice to represent the fifth district. Before leading the state’s Economic Development Department, he served as commissioner and chairman of the Missouri Public Service Commission. Swope Health Services is an affiliate organization of Swope Community Enterprises. Research Medical Center plans to more than double the size of its Emergency Department in a $15 million project that will take two years to complete. Plans also involve adding more parking for the hospital and demolishing three buildings, including the Research College of Nursing facility which will be moved to the south side of Meyer Boulevard. This work that will begin in June is part of $36 million in improvements planned for the hospital. The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art proudly began displaying Thomas Cole’s “The Old Mill at Sunset” (1844) in March, after a decades-long effort to secure a worthy work by “the father of American landscape painting.” Although the museum is not disclosing the price of the painting’s purchase from the Alexander Gallery in New York, Coles have sold at auction for $650,000 to $1.5 million. Obtaining significant works by Cole, particularly one in such good condition, is very difficult as the artist’s death in 1948 at the age of 47 limited his influential body of work. The University of Missouri Kansas-Kansas City and the Stowers Insitute for Medical Research are among 14 Missouri universities and research institutions participating in the Research Alliance of Missouri (RAM). The new RAM collaborative research agreement provides an easier method for universities to combine their research expertise through joint research projects performed on behalf of companies and to obtain research funding for those projects. Some of the types of research scientists hope will be increased through the agreement include discovering new composite materials for the aerospace industry, developing disease resistant crops and creating new sensors to detect bioterrorism. Olivier Pourquie’, a cell biology specialist with the Stowers Institute for Medical Research, has been named one of the most promising biomedical scientists by being designated a Howard Hughes Medical Institute investigator. Pourquie’, the first Stowers researcher to be named a Hughes investigator, was one of 43 scientists selected from among 300 nominees. His research could help uncover the causes for debilitating diseases. The Nature Publishing Group has said Pourquie’ made one of the 24 most noteable discoveries in developmental biology over the past century. UMKC VISION OF GROWTH MEANS MORE ROOMS FOR STUDENTS, AND TRANSITIONS FOR NON-STUDENTS As the University of Missouri - Kansas City fulfills one of its mission areas - to create a vibrant campus life experience - there will be more students living on campus. With this vision, UMKC adopted a master campus plan in 2002 that it believes is good for the urban school and for the city, but also involves what may be a unique situation for a university - supporting residential transitions for senior citizens. According to the master plan, Twin Oaks apartment building at 51st and Oak is scheduled to be vacated June 1, 2006 and then razed to make room for a new facility. But until then, the building currently houses about 500 UMKC students and 68 non-student residents, many of whom are senior citizens and some of whom have lived at Twin Oaks for 30 or 40 years. Most of the student residents are upperclassmen or graduate students and many are international students. Oak Street Housing East at 51st Street along Oak Street opened to near capacity occupancy last fall. In addition to study rooms, kitchenettes and social lounges on each floor, the $22 million residence hall for 561 UMKC students also features a high-tech classroom, three music practice rooms, double occupancy suites with shared baths, laundry facilities, a 24-hour desk operation and an outdoor courtyard. So while UMKC officials look to the university's future and long-term growth, they are also focused on the immediate needs of Twin Oaks residents. "We're trying to do it right and provide as much assistance as we can to find a comparable living space for the residents," said Curt Crespino, UMKC assistant vice chancellor for alumni and constituent relations. The university and community representatives spent a month and a half studying options. One result is that the school will provide an outside professional relocation expert to put together a package and help these residents make decisions and find those places where they can be happy, according to Pat Long, vice chancellor for student affairs enrollment management and university communications. "This is the right thing to do as a member of this community." Long explained the school is focused on Twin Oaks from three perspectives right now. The first is what the university can do for its current residents - primarily providing support for relocation that meets the needs of seniors and students who rely on reasonable housing and public transportation. Next, the 56-year-old building will need maintenance to provide adequate housing until it is vacated. And third, the university will begin new site development. "UMKC is currently in the process of selecting the architectural consultant to assist in the development of the request for proposal," according to John Allen, UMKC director of public relations. "This RFP, which will be out in September 2005, will define the type of facility that will be constructed on the Twin Oaks site," Allen added. Current plans are to focus on possible low-rise apartment-style housing primarily for upper classmen. That will bring the university up to date on its plan to, between Hospital Hill and the main campus, have 2,000 beds for student housing by 2006. Long noted, "That's probably a little high; we're probably looking at 1,800 right now." The Twin Oaks Apartments at 50th and Oak Streets will be demolished in 2006 to make way for upper-classman apartment housing for 500. The addition to on-campus housing at UMKC is consistent with the university's plans to increase enrollment to 17,000 in this decade and the campus master plan adopted in 2002. This is considerable movement from relying on one residence hall that provided housing for 300 students for the school's first 50 years. To accommodate growth, in 1998 UMKC purchased Twin Oaks and started managing it in 2000. According to Long, the original plan was to remodel and rehabilitate the building into a dorm-style facility, however that wasn't cost-feasible. Those cost estimates went up to $80 million. But after the Oak Street Housing East residence hall opened in 2004, attention once again turned to Twin Oaks. She explained, the growth has to happen as UMKC becomes a destination school with an enrollment of 17,000. "We have students coming in from other parts of the Midwest, not just from within the Kansas City metro area, and we have other students who would consider coming to UMKC if they could have on-campus housing and we could provide the larger university experience." HELEN BRYANT IS A CRUSADER WITH A CAUSE FOR HER COMMUNITY Neighborhood leadership can take on many forms. In the Swope Parkway/Elmwood Neighborhood Association (SPENA) it takes the form of Helen Bryant as she takes on predatory lending. Bryant, one of the newest members of the Brush Creek Community Partners Board of Directors, brings a street-level, neighborhood perspective to the Corridor’s redevelopment. She also brings a crusader’s passion to educate homebuyers and sellers about the dangerous business of predatory lending—the practice of providing loans with high interest rates and fees to people desperate for a loan. At first glance it may seem a harmless service to consumers who think they are underserved, but then they find they literally cannot afford to keep up with the financial agreement they’ve negotiated. BCCP board member Helen Bryant confers with BCCP Treasurer and Mazuma Credit Union President Rob Givens at a recent event. Because of predatory mortgage lending, Bryant has seen ruined credit ratings, foreclosures, homeless families, children out of school, lost health insurance, psychological impact and neighborhoods devalued simply because someone desperately wanted to own a home and didn’t understand the risks of the loan. “It can happen before people realize it,” Bryant says. “I’ve seen a foreclosure on a house in April and the same house again in December. And when it happens, the family is displaced and it’s impossible for them to recover their credit rating.” Several years ago Bryant saw a neighbor lose her home and Bryant was frustrated she couldn’t help her. After working as a youth bowling programs organizer, adult league organizer and manager of a 40-lane bowling center, she knew how to take action. “I became a realtor because my passion is to educate the people of my neighborhood.” She started Bryant Real Estate in 2001 after six years in the real estate business. Now she encourages all first-time buyers to go through a home buying class, or at least visit the Home Buying Process page on www.kchomesprogram.com for educational programs and information. Bryant also works to educate current owners and sellers. “There are people who own their homes outright, but get a predatory loan for home repair and lose their house because of the siding or new roof.” She also notes, “many residents sell their homes for less than market value for lack of knowledge,” which hurt both the seller and their neighbors’ property values. She says education is the key to help residents make careful judgments about their homes and neighborhoods. That’s what she advocates as a SPENA board member and now as a member of the Brush Creek Community Partners board. Reducing the market for predatory mortgage lending in Corridor neighborhoods is a priority of BCCP and its Healthy Neighborhoods Task Force. Bryant has also led efforts to make local members of her profession more knowledgeable and proactive about addressing predatory lending, including having more information about mortgage fraud added to the curriculum of the Kansas City Regional Association of Realtors. While Bryant takes on predatory lenders with the goal to help more owners keep their homes and build healthier neighborhoods, she just may be teaching some of the lessons on community development.